


wars are made and somehow that is wisdom

by lostin_space



Series: Time After Time 2020❤️️ [4]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1960s, Dissociation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of conversion therapy, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-15
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23663725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostin_space/pseuds/lostin_space
Summary: Michael is a reporter who wants to expose the government for hiding what is really going on in Vietnam. The best way to do that is to seduce a soldier.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Series: Time After Time 2020❤️️ [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699378
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73
Collections: Time After Time: A Roswell New Mexico Alternate Era AU Event





	wars are made and somehow that is wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> for the time after time event day 4: 1900s!
> 
> this one is heavy and there's a chance I forgot a tag, so please let me know if I did! 
> 
> Also, fair warning, while I did a lot of research for this, I'm also just writing fanfiction so there's a chance some things aren't 100% correct. Please just bear with me.

Michael Guerin looked at himself in the mirror while trying to decide if what’d he’d done was the right thing.

It was no secret that the media was peddling false stories about how well the US was doing. He’d seen multiple articles about how they were winning. But if they were winning, where was the proof? Why wouldn’t any soldiers talk? Michael was determined to expose them for their lies and what better way to do that than to seduce a Captain?

The night before, he’d dressed up nice and nosed his way into a bar full of military men. He’d heard it was where former Air Force captain, Alexander Manes, spent his free time after getting honorable discharged in the heat of the Vietnam war. He’d been sent home six months prior and had refused to speak about his point of view of what it was like over there. So Michael’s plan was to find out exactly what he knew.

There were rumors about Captain Manes. Nothing confirmed, but a little research led him to men who refused to speak about their time with him and also a summer in 1958, when he was simply 17, that he’d gone somewhere undisclosed. A little more research suggested conversion therapy. Michael knew damn well that didn’t work.

“Hello, Captain,” Michael had said as he sidled up to him at the bar. He’d dressed right, he thought‒not queer enough that any fuck head might notice, but queer enough that his interested party would notice. Alexander Manes was that specific party. 

It wasn’t that easy though.

The captain didn’t give his attention away for free. It was something that really required effort, but Michael had come prepared. This was his job. His mission was the expose the military for the lies they were telling the American people. He wasn’t going to just give up because he took some prodding.

“Bartender!” Michael called after a few minutes of failed, one-sided conversation, “Get the captain a drink on me.”

Captain Alexander tilted his head just a little bit towards Michael and he saw his way in. He leaned a little closer, only close enough that a man with a little too much in his system might, and smiled. He hadn’t had a single thing to drink and he planned to stay absolutely sober, but the captain didn’t need to know that.

“It’s to thank you for your service,” Michael told him. Captain Alexander took a sip and breathed a slow, steady breath. Michael didn’t move away.

“What do you think my service was, exactly?” he asked, his voice a lot warmer than Michael expected. His shoulders squared a little more and he recalibrated his mind to that voice.

“Well, you played a part in why our country is winning this war, Captain,” Michael told him. He smirked and shook his head, taking another sip. That felt like such an easy admission from a man who refused to speak. Would it really be that easy to get him to admit that was bullshit?

“What do you want from me?” he asked, turning to Michael with a kindling fire in his eyes. It reminded Michael of the many times in his life that he’d felt that same thing. The desire to pick a fight to fuel that fire, to make him feel something again. “Are you one of those reporters? Do you think you’re the one who’s going to get me to speak? I’ve been home for less than a year and you want me to speak about it with a stranger? There are no winners and losers in the war, man, we all get fucked. Quote that in your little article.”

Michael licked his lips and smiled. The best thing about being an undercover reporter is that he was really fucking good at it. Besides, he actually did find the captain attractive. It wouldn’t hurt him to weasel out secrets from the comfort of his bed.

“I’m not a reporter. But, if I was, that’d be a good quote,” Michael said calmly, knowing that the first step to being suspicious was to get defensive. He pushed the drink closer to the captain. He spoke a little softer and a little closer, “Maybe my goal is simply to have my way with a drunken war hero.” 

Captain Alexander Manes stared at him, clearly skeptical. Michael just kept smiling at him and let him look him up and down. Yes, nothing about that hurt.

“How do I know you’re not a cop?” he wondered. Michael bit his bottom lip and looked around. There were too many people with judgemental eyes for him to do anything he wanted. Too many old men with war stories he didn’t really care about. He just cared about this man’s war stories.

“I could prove it to you, just not here,” Michael told him softly. The captain clenched his jaw and gave a small nod. He didn’t smile, but Michael made up for it. “Let me buy you another drink, Captain.”

“Okay,” he agreed, “Call me Alex.”

Michael felt triumphant and flagged the bartender down to get him another drink. Alex was indeed hard to soften up, but Michael saw all the signs leading that way and he had no intention of stopping. Hell, if he had to come here every night for the next year to talk to him, he would. This was important.

“You’re beautiful,” Michael told him in confidence once the bar was half empty and no one was close enough to hear. Alex shook his head with the first smile of the night. It was so small but Michael saw it and he was taking it with pride. It felt even bigger when Alex hid it with his drink.

“You know I lost my leg, right? How’s that for beautiful?” Alex told him. Michael rolled his eyes and wished he could lean even closer. He was as close as he could get right now, though.

“What does that have to do with anything? I’m sure that part of you is beautiful too,” Michael told him. Alex shook his head again.

“I’m not drunk enough for this.”

“What’s this?”

“For you,” Alex corrected. Michael pulled his bottom lip between his teeth and let his eyes linger on Alex’s lips. That wasn’t even the reporter in him, that was simply the man.

“Why? What about me requires alcohol?” Michael asked sweetly. Alex took another sip and sighed.

“Everything,” Alex breathed. Michael smiled earnestly and bumped his elbow into Alex’s. It earned him another smile. 

“Keep talking. I like hearing you speak about me, Alex,” he prodded. Alex huffed a laugh and Michael almost fell out of his chair.

“I swear, you are the least subtle man I’ve ever met. How do you do that?” he asked. Michael shrugged a shoulder.

“People see you kiss one woman and then they think you’re okay and stop questioning you. I can be as bold as I want most of the time,” he said. Alex eyed him all over again and Michael felt the need to quickly explain himself. “I do like women, but I enjoy my fair share of men as well.”

“And… I’m one of those men?” Alex asked. Michael grinned.

“Who’s the bold one now?”

He laughed softly, but honestly as he took the last sip of his drink before pushing the glass away. “Still you.”

“Yes,” Michael answered confidently, “In fact, you might be the perfect man.” Alex rolled his eyes.

“I don’t understand what you get out of this.”

“You, hopefully,” Michael told him. He again shook his head.

“Why would you want that?” Alex laughed. Michael looked around for a moment and then moved in closer, probably a little too close considering they were in a Veteran’s bar, but he didn’t care.

“Because I’m a man who knows what I want,” he breathed, pushing it one step further by pressing his lips behind the Airman’s ear. Chills rose to his skin and he felt him stop breathing. “And I want you. No ulterior motive needed.”

“Okay,” Alex breathed, looking his way after Michael reluctantly put space between them. His skin was warm and Michael was beginning to think less and less with his reporter brain and more and more with his hopelessly attracted brain. Why couldn’t he have been ugly? It’d make it so much easier. “Okay.”

“Come home with me, I can’t touch you here,” Michael told him softly. Alex nodded, seemingly just as interested as Michael felt.

Michael paid for them both and tried not to let it hurt his pockets as he began to lead him a few blocks away to where he lived. They walked slow, Alex leaning heavily on his cane, and yet it never seemed to crush the fact that he wanted to get his hands on him. The time it took only seemed to make him even more excited. Which was bad because he needed to keep a clear head.

He considered asking if Alex was okay with all the walking, but decided he was a grown ass man and would’ve said something if it was too much. Besides, they needed to get to Michael’s apartment so he could record their conversation so he could better write the article whenever he got Alex to open up about what was really going on overseas. 

Because he  _ would  _ get Alex to open up about that.

Whenever they got into Michael’s small loft, Alex looked around with a hidden little smile before he looked back to Michael.

“I should’ve known.”

“Should’ve known what?”

“You’re a starving artist, hippie type. It explains the interest in me,” Alex said. Michael tilted his head in amusement, but didn’t try to deny the assumption. He wasn’t that wrong. Just, his paintings were for fun. His passion was writing. 

“Does it now?” Michael asked as he shrugged off his jacket.

“Never met an anti-war hippie that didn’t wanna pick my brain,” he said boldly. Behind closed doors, he seemed to shine. Michael didn’t even know how to handle that. 

“You got me, I wanna pick your brain,” Michael said, grabbing the collar of his shirt. Alex smiled and watched him as he pulled it over his head. He gave him a second to look him up and down. “But first I wanna get my hands on you.”

“What are you waiting for?”

Michael shook his head with a laugh and moved forward, grabbing Alex by the hips as he moved in for a kiss. The cane clattered to the floor as Alex moved his hands to his hair and kissed back like this was the first taste of water in a long drought. Honestly, it probably was.

He pulled Alex flush against him, trying not to get too attached to the way he pulled his hair or dug his nails into his back like he needed to remind himself that this was real. Michael mindlessly groaned as Alex palmed him over his jeans, the sound earning a filthy smile that broke the kiss.

“I gotta say, you are quite the surprise, Captain,” Michael breathed, his jaw dropping in silent praise soon after as Alex grabbed him. “And you said I’m the bold one.”

“Listen, it’s been a long time, is all. I can be bold when I want,” Alex promised him, leaning to kiss on his jaw and his neck. Somehow‒though not much of a surprise, honestly‒every logical, reporter part of his brain melted and all that filled his mind was Alex. “It’s easy when I know what you want.”

“Uh-huh,” Michael breathed, tilting his head so Alex had more skin to work with. He moaned louder as Alex softly bit his neck and soothed the skin with his tongue. Suddenly his back hit the door and Alex pressed against him in the best way. For a man who hadn’t gotten his fix in a while, he sure as hell knew how to get it.

“So tell me what you want,” Alex instructed, moving his hand to slowly slide past the waistband of his jeans. Michael gasped as cold fingertips drifted over his hip and strategically down to his inner thigh. It pushed him onto his toes, desperate for more contact. This wasn’t exactly how he expected tonight to go and yet here he was.

“You,” Michael said, voice boarding on begging. He felt Alex smile and his hand carefully closed around his cock. 

“Who?”

“You. I want you.”

Alex moved agonizingly slow and seemed to enjoy torturing him which, honestly, made sense. Why not torture the starving artist, right? Plus, the longer it lasted, the more time he had to clear his head enough to actually pick his brain when the time came.

“Say it again,” Alex breathed. 

“ _ I want you.” _

Alex removed his hand before he had the chance to speed up and took a step away, leaving Michael feeling cold and confused. When he opened his eyes, he saw Alex just marveling at him which was… a lot. 

“You’re so beautiful,” Alex told him, voice honest and genuine. Michael’s skin felt hot all over, furrowing his eyebrows. This man was a goddamn mystery. He’d expected a hard ass, he expected a quick fuck, he expected a lot of things. And yet here Alex was. He watched as he took his shirt off, revealing an anchor tattooed on his side that clashed with his Airman status. The regular scars on his slim body, however, proved that just fine. “You want me? Take me.”

Michael moved back into his space, kissing him again. After a nod of approval, Michael grabbed the back of his thighs and lifted him so he could carry him to his bed. It wasn’t far and he dropped them both on it, laying between his legs so he could feel his bare chest against his. God, it’d been way too long since he’d been with a man.

“Hey, hey,” Alex breathed, breaking the kiss. 

“What’s wrong?” Michael asked, pushing onto all fours over him despite the fact his whole body was desperate to keep contact. He couldn’t remember the last time he wanted someone so bad.

“If I take my prosthetic off, will you be okay with that? Or do you want me to keep my jeans on?” Alex wondered, catching his breath and his eyes hazy like it was really taking effort to ask instead of just going all in right then. 

“What? Take it off, of course I’m okay with it,” Michael agreed, getting off of him to let him do just that. Michael watched as he undid his jeans and slid them off carefully, feeling slightly brain dead as somehow even that felt erotic. 

“Why are you staring? Get your jeans off too,” Alex told him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” Michael agreed, stumbling to comply. He missed the part where Alex undid the corset around his thigh and removed it. He stood naked as Alex carefully leaned it against the wall and looked up at him.

“You still want me?” Alex asked. 

“You have no idea.”

Michael fell back on the bed and pulled Alex with him, absorbing his carefree laughs with a kiss that quickly deepened into something more.

It was easy with Alex. Despite the fact that this had started by Michael seeing him in the paper and knowing he had to find out the facts even if by going undercover, none of it felt fake or forced. Alex was open and knew just how much of a reaction to give. Then, perhaps more importantly, he knew how to take Michael apart bit by bit until he couldn’t even think straight.

By the time they both finished, Michael laid too blissed out to even remember what his initial plan was. 

“Are you okay?” Alex laughed a few minutes later, using a warm, damp rag to wipe down his chest. Michael didn’t even recall him getting up to get that. 

“I don’t… I don’t understand how you even… What the hell do they teach you in the AirForce?” he breathed. Alex laughed harder which made him smile. That was a nice sound and a sign of comfort. He was comfortable here. Good.

“None of that, I promise,” Alex assured him, leaning down to press a kiss in the middle of his freshly cleaned chest. 

“I just seem to recall you being all closed off and angry just a few hours ago, forgive me if I’m struggling to understand where that came from,” Michael told him, “Not saying I didn’t love it. Because I did.”

“Well,” Alex breathed, getting settled into his side, “I was a lot different before I enlisted. You sort of make me feel like that guy again.”

That woke up his reporter brain again and reminded him that he was dealing with an AirForce Captain who had been wounded in combat that he was supposed to be finding out information from. His job was to find out what the government wasn’t telling them. He was supposed to use this man to expose them.

“Hold that thought, let me use the bathroom real quick,” Michael told him. Alex nodded, kissing his collarbone softly and letting him get up.

Michael headed to his bathroom and quietly locked the door behind him. He slowly, carefully opened the closet door that was in there and moved the stack of towels that hid his recording set up. The microphone had been pretty strategically weaved into the drawer of his bedside table, the wire invisible in the darkness of the room they’d been sleeping in. He pressed record.

He washed his hands to make it seem like he actually did go to the bathroom which forced him to look at himself in the mirror. His hair was a mess and his skin was still damp from both sweat and Alex wiping down his chest. His neck in particular was red and sore, but that was okay.

Michael made his way back to the bed and fell onto it unceremoniously, resting his head on Alex’s bicep. Alex put his other hand on the side of his head and moved to press a kiss to his hair. It was so sweet and intimate that Michael almost felt guilty for recording. Almost. This was bigger than them, though.

“You smell like rain.”

“No sweat and sex? Because I feel like that’s what I smell like,” Michael mused. Alex moved his chin up to kiss his lips.

“That too.”

“So, tell me more about that guy you were before you enlisted,” Michael prodded, poking him gently in the chest. Alex let out a soft laugh and settled into his pillow.

“Guess it’s time for you to pick my brain, huh?” Alex said. Michael kissed his neck and heard him sigh. “Uh, that guy was… Confident, I guess. Super anti-war, hung out with a lot of other outcasts. I was, like, super into rock ‘n roll despite my dad hating it. That whole nightlife, sneaking out, wearing leather, meeting with other people with different sexual interests, questionable dancing, that was my whole scene.”

“Seriously?” Michael asked, trying to imagine him in that kind of setting. He couldn’t picture it. Though, he supposed that explained the tattoo.

“Oh yeah, Link Wray is my king, I tried so hard to play like him when I was young,” Alex told him, smiling wide as he thought about it. Michael smiled right back.

“You play guitar?”

“Yeah,” Alex sighed, staring at the ceiling a little wistfully as he thought about his young years. It reminded Michael of that summer he heard about where Alexander Manes disappeared. Michael slung his leg over Alex’s.

“What happened to make you go from that to enlisting when the war was just amping up?” Michael asked. Alex’s happy smile faded and he stared at the ceiling for a few seconds of silence. Michael rubbed his hand over his stomach a few times at an attempt to soothe what was going on in his mind.

“I just did,” Alex decided instead of telling the truth. Michael understood that. That wasn’t the part he needed to record anyway. “But the first couple years I was going to school at the same time, you know? I decided my best shot at doing anything was becoming an officer. Then the first couple years after that, the USAF wasn’t even on the front lines, you know? Like, it was pretty easy. Nothing really felt real. I mean it was real, but it wasn’t… I don’t know, it was just casual, mainly focused on keeping things under control. Then in ‘65 they decided we should really be more hands-on and then suddenly I was in charge of these boys who had just gotten out of basic in a country I didn’t know, leading them to destroy a whole country’s air defense system.”

“It escalated that fast?” Michael asked. He didn’t remember that being much of public knowledge that they did that. He’d mainly heard about the army on the ground. And even then, they were being told they were winning. Not that they needed to amp up their forces.

“I don’t know if it was that fast or if it just felt like it, but yeah. The next two years were a total blur. They needed me, so I never got to go home in that time. I think I was over there for 27 months straight,” Alex said, his voice kind of hazy. Michael blinked in surprise, shifting to look at him. Alex seemed completely out of it.

“Are they allowed to do that?”

“I had to give the go ahead to the destruction of highways and bridges. Places people who shouldn’t have been involved were. Kids going to school, even. People who were fine and then they weren’t. I had to do that,” Alex went on, voice still out of it. His breathing slowly started to pick up. Michael lifted his head a little to see his eyes, noticing that they were completely unfocused and dilated.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

“But they were building their own weaponry, specifically made to be antiaircraft. Surface-to-air missiles. My aircraft got grazed by one, just hit us by a few millimeters of the wing, it still hit us. It still hit us and Vince tried his best, I know he did, he was so good, he was so young.”

“Alex?”

“And it started going down over a forest and Vince was trying to find a safe place to land so we didn’t crash and so no one got hurt. No one was supposed to get hurt, I said no one would get hurt, I said that. I told them. They were all just boys, they were  _ boys. _ ”

Michael sat up completely, confused fear rising in his system. He didn’t know what this was, but Alex didn’t seem to be with him anymore.

“Alex?” he said again, touching his face gently. Except that seemed to make it worse, his eyes going wide and he grabbed Michael’s wrist with a death grip. He twisted it, pinning it to the mattress and forcing him to hit the mattress with it so he didn’t break it. “Alex!”

It was silent for a moment, nothing but heavy breathing as Michael tried his best not to make it worse. This wasn’t really how he expected this to go. But he did know one thing‒he had something perfect to expose the government for lying about what was going on. If this was what it did to their soldiers in only a few years, imagine what it was doing to the people on the ground who were there for longer? Why was the government acting like this wasn’t happening? Like it wasn’t destroying their soldiers?

Still, Alex’s grip began to loosen until he let go. Michael slowly sat up and turned to face him, avoiding rubbing his aching wrist so he wouldn’t feel guilty. The soldier was blinking rapidly as he seemed to slowly come back to the present. Michael waited patiently.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said once he seemed to realize where he was, looking around a few times before his eyes settled on Michael again. Guilt bled from him like a faucet left on. “I’m so sorry, I’ll leave”

“Hey, hey, no, don’t go, it’s okay,” Michael promised, speaking as softly as he could. Alex was still catching his breath and his eyes slowly started filling with tears.

“I’m sorry,” he insisted, his bottom lip quivering as he took in a shaky breath. He again tried to move towards his prosthetic, but Michael crawled closer. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“No, it’s okay,” Michael promised. Tears fell over Alex’s cheeks as he shook his head and slowly started to fold in on himself. “Hey, can I touch you?”

“What?” Alex breathed, his knees pulled to his chest as best as they could.

“I wanna hold you, but I don’t want to scare you again. So can I?” Michael asked softly, feeling his own shade of guilt for making him cry by bringing it up. But still, he had his ammunition. 

“Okay,” Alex agreed reluctantly.

Michael situated himself beside him and carefully pulled him into his arms. Once he felt Alex go along with it, he pulled him a little closer and held his head to his chest and pulled him into his lap. He did his best to cradle him, shushing him like he imagined a mother would. He didn’t know how else to comfort him.

“I’m sorry,” Alex murmured again after enough time passed for him to stop crying, “I-I don’t know what happened, I just… I get like that sometimes. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, you can’t help it,” Michael insisted. He wasn’t exactly sure what couldn’t be helped, but he knew it made enough sense for a man not to react well after what happened to him. 

“Still,” he said, “That was embarrassing. And this is embarrassing. I-I mean, I really killed the mood with all that.” Alex tried to laugh so Michael forced a little chuckle too, kissing the top of his head.

“It’s fine. Might as well know what I’m asking for when I say I want to see you again,” Michael told him. Alex lifted his head, eyes a little bloodshot and face still a little sad.

“You want to see me again?”

“Yeah,” Michael said, carefully drying his cheek with his thumb, “I really do.”

Alex let out a breath and then moved forward for a kiss that Michael accepted greatly. Because he absolutely wanted to see this man again. Even if he knew damn well that once his article became public, Alex would hate him.

So, yes, Michael Guerin stared at himself in the mirror as he thought about the night before and wondered if he had made the right decision. What was more important? Protecting his relationship with Alex or exposing what was going on that their country refused to admit?

Instead of facing that question right then, he sat down and began writing his article. When the time came, he would bring it to Alex and be honest. By then, he’d be able to tell him about the VVAW, show him that he wasn’t the only soldier who was against the war. By then, he would hopefully be able to get him to understand why that article needed to be published.

But right now, he just had to write.

**Author's Note:**

> also on my tumblr: spaceskam


End file.
